Amaculo manihamba: canções de caminhar de mulheres de uma região transfronteiriça ao sul do continente africano

Resenha | Dossiê Musicar Local

Abstract

In western Maputaland, a borderland region located at the juncture of South Africa, Mozambique, and Swaziland, Song Walking examines the politics of land, its role in memories, and its evolution. Angela Impey explores opposing accounts of this little-known strategic triangle, opposing textual narratives with the memories of an elderly group of women whose songs and daily activities bring subaltern narratives and points of view about the dynamics in the borderlands.  Performed while traversing vast distances to the accompaniment of the   mouth-harp Isitweletwele, Impey’s ethography finds in women's walking songs (amaculo manihamba) a myriad of impacts on property, livelihoods, and senses of location caused by internationally guided politics on transboundary environmental conservation.

This book ties ethnomusicological research to the broader themes of international development, conservation of the environment, gender, and access to resources for local economic purposes. Song Walking testifies to the affective, spatial, and economic dimensions of the place by demonstrating that development processes are essentially cultural processes and revealing how music can be used by silenced subjects for self-expression, while contributing to a more inclusive and culturally appropriate alignment between land and environmental policies and local needs and practices.